Ramirez avoids drug ban, at ease with retirement

NEW YORK – Unwilling to face another drug ban, Manny Ramirez is leaving baseball and is at peace with his decision while the sport confronts the specter of steroids again.

"I'm at ease," Ramirez told ESPNdeportes.com by phone from his home in Miami. "God knows what's best (for me). I'm now an officially retired baseball player. I'll be going away on a trip to Spain with my old man."

One of the game's great sluggers, Ramirez tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance and wasted little time in saying he was done with the game.

He retired Friday rather than face a 100-game suspension for a second violation of Major League Baseball's drug policy. The 12-time All-Star served a 50-game ban in 2009 while with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Second-time offenders get double that penalty.

A person familiar with the situation confirmed to The Associated Press that Ramirez tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the nature of Ramirez's issue with MLB's drug policy was not publicly disclosed.

The commissioner's office announced its decision in a statement, providing few details and saying it would have no further comment.

"Major League Baseball recently notified Manny Ramirez of an issue under Major League Baseball's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program," MLB said. "Ramirez has informed MLB that he is retiring as an active player. If Ramirez seeks reinstatement in the future, the process under the Drug Program will be completed."

Some in baseball were baffled that Ramirez would get caught again violating the drug policy. Others were upset that baseball is still dealing with the questions of steroid use with the current trial of Barry Bonds and the upcoming trial of Roger Clemens.

"Any time that this comes up, it's kind of a black eye for baseball," New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Saturday. "It's sad that we keep trying to put this behind us, this era that they talk about, and it just keeps resurfacing — the trials coming up, you have what happened with Manny and, you know, it's sad because you want the game to be clean."

Others were disappointed that another player walked away in shame.

"Until the past couple of years, I thought he was on his way to the Hall of Fame," Texas manager Ron Washington said. "I don't think many guys got as many big hits in their careers as he has. There weren't many guys who had as big an effect on a game as he had. You hate to see greatness all of a sudden just fade."

Rays vice president Andrew Friedman, who signed Ramirez to a $2 million, one-year contract in the offseason, said the club was "obviously surprised" when it learned what happened and was "hurt by what transpired."

"We were cautiously optimistic that he would be able to be a force for us," he said.

The 38-year-old outfielder-designated hitter left the Rays this week to attend to what the team called a family matter. Manager Joe Maddon said Thursday that he expected Ramirez to be available for Friday night's game at Chicago, but he never showed up.

"Of course you're disappointed," Maddon said before the Rays rallied to a 9-7 win Friday night over the White Sox, their first victory in seven games this season. "But at the end of the day, he has to make up his own mind. It's a choice he has to make."

Ramirez played in only five games for the Rays, with one hit in 17 at-bats, and flied out as a pinch-hitter Wednesday in his final at-bat. He had a strong spring training, then was excused from the last exhibition game for personal reasons.

"It's unfortunate," said Tampa Bay outfielder Johnny Damon, who helped Boston end an 86-year title drought by winning the 2004 World Series, in which Ramirez was the Most Valuable Player.

"I don't know everything that's been brought up. All I know is he's a great teammate and a great player," Damon said, when asked about the steroid allegations. "It's going to be sad not seeing Manny Ramirez ever around a baseball field."

A schoolboy legend on the streets of New York, Ramirez was selected 13th overall by the Cleveland Indians in the 1991 amateur draft and rose quickly through the minor leagues, with a youthful exuberance and natural charisma that endeared him to just about everyone he met.

He broke into the majors in 1993 and played his first full season the following year, when he finished second to the Royals' Bob Hamlin in voting for Rookie of the Year. Ramirez went on to establish himself as one of the game's most feared hitters, adopting a dreadlock hairdo that seemed to mirror his happy-go-lucky demeanor — both on the field and off.

He signed with the Red Sox as a free agent in December 2000, helping the long-suffering franchise win the World Series a few years later, then doing it again in 2007.

"It's sad, man, to see a player with that much talent and with an unbelievable career get him out of the game," Red Sox slugger David Ortiz said. "He got his issues like a lot of people know, but, as a player, I think he did what he was supposed to."

The Red Sox wearied of those issues, though, and traded him to the Dodgers in July 2008.

Ramirez instantly became a fan favorite on the West Coast, with "Mannywood" signs popping up around town, as he led Los Angeles to the NL West title and a sweep of the Chicago Cubs in the playoffs. The clutch performances earned Ramirez a $45 million, two-year contract.

All that good will fizzled the following May, when Ramirez tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin, a banned female fertility drug often used to help mask steroid use.

According to a report in the New York Times later that summer, Ramirez also tested positive for performance-enhancing substances during MLB's anonymous survey testing in 2003.

On Friday came strike three — unofficially — and Ramirez decided he was out.

"I'm shocked," said Colorado's Jason Giambi, who has acknowledged taking steroids during his own career. "He always kind of portrayed that he was out there, but he knew how to hit, man. He was unbelievable when it came to hitting."

Ramirez's positive test for a banned substance comes as baseball, which has been working hard to put its Steroids Era in the past, has another of its great hitters, Bonds, on trial in San Francisco. Bonds is facing federal charges that he lied to a grand jury in 2003 by denying that he willfully used performance-enhancing drugs.

"Once you get caught once, I mean, you're already banged 50 games, why try again?" said Red Sox reliever Bobby Jenks, a teammate of Ramirez with the Chicago White Sox for a short time last season. "I mean, it's a little stupid, but I guess he made his own choices. Now he's got to live with them."

"Might have been running out of bullets," added Phillies manger Charlie Manuel, who worked with Ramirez in Cleveland. "Father Time was catching up to him."

The Rays had hoped Ramirez could add some pop to a lineup that lost several key pieces off last year's AL East champions. After all, he's a .312 career hitter with 13 seasons of 100-plus RBIs and 555 home runs, 14th on the all-time list.

Now, quite possibly an asterisk next to all those numbers.

"Major League Baseball, they're all after those people. They don't play around. They let the players know how tough they're going to be," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "They say, 'We'll be checking you guys, we'll be monitoring all this stuff.'"

Ramirez led the American League with a .349 batting average in 2002, finished second the next year, and had an AL-best 43 home runs in 2004. He made more than $200 million during his playing career, a testament both to his hitting prowess and his ability to draw fans.

But there was another side to Manny — his lackadaisical play, particularly on defense and the basepaths, rubbed some managers and teammates the wrong way.

Ramirez flied out four times in his big league debut in 1993. In his second game, he hit two homers and nearly a third — a long drive at Yankee Stadium bounced over the left-field fence for a double. Trouble was, Ramirez had his head down and assumed it was a home run, so he trotted past second base and was nearing third when his cackling teammates finally stopped him.

It was simply Manny being Manny.

"He didn't take life too seriously," said Yankees catcher Russell Martin, who was with Ramirez on the Dodgers in 2009 and '10. "I feel like some fans live and die with the game. He just didn't take it to that level."

The question now is whether his drug use will forever shame him.

Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker called the end of Ramirez's career "a shame," and said he should have been headed for the Hall of Fame with the numbers he put up.

Yet many sluggers from the Steroids Era, among them Mark McGwire, are finding that numbers aren't enough. The shadow that hovered over baseball during their playing days has drifted over Cooperstown, with voters reluctant to reward them with induction into baseball's shrine.

"It's hard not to wonder what's what. You just don't know," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "You have no idea of how long it went on, how much it went on, how much it changed it. It just puts that doubt, I think, in your mind."

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AP Sports Writers Andrew Seligman in Chicago, Bernie Wilson in San Diego, Bob Baum in Phoenix, Howard Ulman in Boston, David Ginsburg in Baltimore, Tom Withers in Pittsburgh, and AP freelance writer Amy Jinkner-Lloyd in Atlanta contributed to this report.